I have, in my research lab, a refrigerated incubator -- think large refrigerator, but with a much wider range of settable temperatures. It has started very intermittently making a lot of weird high-pitched squealing noises, but seems to be keeping the temp perfectly OK and otherwise seems to be working fine.

I had the company rep (of the company that originally sold it) come out to look at it, and basically all he could say is that it was something that is likely eventually going to fail and need to be replaced ... either the fan, the fan motor, or the compressor. Another local repair company said that it's likely to be the fan motor, as these are sealed units, so cannot be lubed, and therefore are just replaced when they go bad.

Of these, either the fan or fan motor is probably worth replacing, but not the compressor, and they no longer even make this model of incubator... so if it's the compressor, it'd mean buying a whole new incubator, and they're not cheap ($7-8K). Repair by the local company is also likely to be expensive (probably at least $500-1K+, depending on what needs to be repaired/replaced).

For kicks, I searched for the model number of this incubator on partselect.com, and incredibly, the model came up as a refrigerator... which it isn't really, but is close in terms of design. They offer the fan and fan motor for VERY reasonable prices, and so I'm almost tempted to try the repair myself. I'm just a little hesitant to take it apart, for fear of the difficulty level involved. (Partselect.com does have a bunch of good instructional videos, though.)

What say you all?

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Freya says, 'Hello from NOLA, baby!' (Laissez bon temps rouler!)

High-pitched squealing noise?

Sounds like the sound my refrigerator's evaporator fan motor was making. Found a replacement part on Amazon for $15. It was located behind the freezer section (freezer on-top Hotpoint refrigerator). I found diy instructions on the interweb.

[forums.macresource.com]


Disclaimer: I have only amateur appliance repair experience.

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Northern California Coast

Message Modelamac, he was an appliance repairman and helped me several times.

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“No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.” -- François de La Rochefoucauld

"Those who cannot accept the past are condemned to revise it." -- Geo. Mathias

The German word for contraceptive is “Schwangerschaftsverhütungsmittel”. By the time you finished saying that, it’s too late

can you record a sound file and post it?

did you ever get those worms coming toward the laser beams?

any updates on Saltpocalypse?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2023 10:30PM by gadje.

You have an expensive and elaborate hobby.

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It would be helpful if you could get a better idea of where the sound is coming from. Past that, I've found appliances surprisingly easy to repair when they can be repaired.

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mattkime
You have an expensive and elaborate hobby.

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It would be helpful if you could get a better idea of where the sound is coming from. Past that, I've found appliances surprisingly easy to repair when they can be repaired.

??? this isn't a hobby, it's my research work, on what is obviously a very limited research budget -- so I've had to occasionally find creative and inexpensive solutions to problems such as these.

And yes, I've tried to get a better idea of where the sound is coming from, but the fact that it's only very intermittent has made it difficult. Seems to be coming from (for lack of a better way to describe it) the top-center back area, behind the back panel (as viewed from inside).

I could post an audio file, but imagine a high-pitched, intermittent squealing noise, and you pretty much have it.

I never thought to look for the part on Amazon, thanks for that tip. FWIW, here's the partselect.com page I found: [www.partselect.com]

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Freya says, 'Hello from NOLA, baby!' (Laissez bon temps rouler!)

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PeterB

??? this isn't a hobby, it's my research work, on what is obviously a very limited research budget

Sorry, pointlessly giving you a hard time.

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For kicks, I searched for the model number of this incubator on partselect.com, and incredibly, the model came up as a refrigerator... which it isn't really, but is close in terms of design.

Quite possibly it started as a standard refrigerator and was modified to the needs of being an incubator. Probably many of the parts are the same, but possibly the modifications may need adjusting the methods of taking it apart and reassembling.

Saw the same thing with an upright freezer purchased for the book repair person at the library to store wet books until they could be properly dried. Extra shelving to spread out the materials compared to the base design.

[www.appliance411.com]

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!#$@@$#!

Nolite manducare flavo.

I will tell you that buying parts on Amazon is a BAD IDEA. Amazon is full of counterfeit low quality Chinesium. Auto parts are particularly bad.

The counterfeit parts business is enormous, and even US military aircraft are experiencing that trap.

Hell, I bought a cheap window switch assembly for my beat up minivan / suburban stealth pickup truck. Firmware is wrong and it does not act like the OEM.

What cbelt said. 1,000%.

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!#$@@$#!

Nolite manducare flavo.

In my 23 years of experience(my own company) of appliance repair, I have heard plenty of squeaky fans, but never a squeaky compressor. Compressors tend to run or not run.

I'm guessing that your problem is a noisy circulating fan inside. You might try [www.apwagner.com], looking up you model number. If your unit is listed, there should be a diagram of the unit showing the fan and location of it.

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Ed (modelamac)

Trying to figure out some people is like trying to smell the number 9.

In my limited experience, fans are pretty straightforward replacements. A few screws, a bloody knuckle two, and it's done--as far as the physical replacement. The second hurdle is connecting it to power and control, if its not a perfectly matching plug-in harness, you may have to wire-nut or solder, and take care to match wires.

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modelamac
In my 23 years of experience(my own company) of appliance repair, I have heard plenty of squeaky fans, but never a squeaky compressor. Compressors tend to run or not run.

I'm guessing that your problem is a noisy circulating fan inside. You might try [www.apwagner.com], looking up you model number. If your unit is listed, there should be a diagram of the unit showing the fan and location of it.

This would be my guess as well. And yes, many research equipment is re-labeled consumer products. My last institution refused my requests to get high-end consumer or restaurant-grade incubators (which is what I did starting my lab out), and the ‘research’ products have been the ones that have broken first.

As for parts, during COVID I had trouble with genuine third party suppliers not having what I needed. So I have turned to eBay for pulls and Amazon. I would say ‘the buyer beware’. Inspect any replacement parts for obvious quality issues. But in the end, my Amazon parts for our washer and dryer were good replacements.

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sekker

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modelamac
In my 23 years of experience(my own company) of appliance repair, I have heard plenty of squeaky fans, but never a squeaky compressor. Compressors tend to run or not run.

I'm guessing that your problem is a noisy circulating fan inside. You might try [www.apwagner.com], looking up you model number. If your unit is listed, there should be a diagram of the unit showing the fan and location of it.

This would be my guess as well. And yes, many research equipment is re-labeled consumer products. My last institution refused my requests to get high-end consumer or restaurant-grade incubators (which is what I did starting my lab out), and the ‘research’ products have been the ones that have broken first.

As for parts, during COVID I had trouble with genuine third party suppliers not having what I needed. So I have turned to eBay for pulls and Amazon. I would say ‘the buyer beware’. Inspect any replacement parts for obvious quality issues. But in the end, my Amazon parts for our washer and dryer were good replacements.

Indeed sekker is correct -- for example, I have another incubator which is more or less just a glorified Peltier-style cooler... but they charge about 3-4x the money for it, because it's "research grade". I've almost been tempted to buy a regular wine cooler, that would do probably the exact same thing and for far less money. (The disadvantage of the Peltier-style coolers is that they can only cool based on ambient, so often won't get quite cold enough for my purposes, and also often don't have the same level of temp control as do the regular refrigerator-type incubators.)

And yes, the incubator I'm talking about is apparently just a modified refrigerator.

Interesting that the fan motor is available for such a wide range of prices -- Amazon has it as low as $15-20 (yes, I know it could be counterfeit/low quality), partselect.com has it for about $100, and apwagner.com (from modelamac's link) has it for about $40. What I'm reading is that it's not a super-difficult repair, but that there might be issues with the screw holes/mounting properly lining up on the replacement?

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Freya says, 'Hello from NOLA, baby!' (Laissez bon temps rouler!)